State Police Opens Investigation

Arkansas State Police are investigating comments posted Saturday in the Benton County Republican Party's online newsletter which say, in part: "The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives."

County Chairman Tim Summers of Bentonville confirmed Monday morning he was contacted by State Police investigators about the comments, which are in a guest column and not approved by the county committee, he said. The committee was attempting to remove the column from the website Monday morning, he said. The site is: http://www.nogy.net/bcgop/Apr_2013/index.html and the commentary in question was still on it as of 9:30 a.m.

State Rep. Sue Scott, R-Rogers, confirmed Monday she was contacted by State Police and by Rogers police. Scott voted for the "private option" extension of health care coverage, which the column protested.

The 2nd admendment does not say you have a right to use a gun against an elected official just because you don't agree with how they have voted in the past or in the future. If someone doesn't like the way a representative for their area votes then don't vote for them in the next election.

Now, I have to worry about being shot the next time I go to a public meeting where citizens get a chance to voice their opinions to their elected officials!!!

I would be real worried about letting this citizen into the next public meeting knowing how he really feels when someone doesn't agree with his beliefs.

I hope he doesn't work for the same company or part of NWA where I do.

RE "Cdawg - Who wrote the column in question?"The column is "Scathing" by Chris Nogy.

RE "those who feel threatened by this letter need to grow up and actually read what the writer is saying."I read it. This is what the writer is saying:"I don’t feel the same way about the Democrats as bullet backstops as I do about the Republicans who joined them. The Democrats were doing what their party told them they had to do because they were elected to do that job. We wailed and cried and threw up our hands every time the Democrat socialist Governor driven Senate and House rammed through things that we knew were dangerous, but that was the fact of the elections....

"So what do we do? While I believe that we as a party are done in Arkansas after this, if there is ANY hope of our survival, it is going to take not being forgiving. Not only for past actions, but to show those who will come in the future that the cost of failure to do the thing they were elected to do will be significant....We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us that we are serious. The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line. If we can’t shoot them, we have to at least be firm in our threat to take immediate action against them politically, socially, and civically if they screw up on something this big."

That's not satire. That's blowhard Teabaggery of the less benign persuasion.

Again, it's not what Nogy wrote that's THE ISSUE.It's how this paper is being fooled and lets the dishonest chairman get by with it by not checking the background:

"County Chairman Tim Summers of Bentonville confirmed Monday morning he was contacted by State Police investigators about the comments, which are in a guest column and not approved by the county committee, he said."

At the time Nogys wrote the controversial column they were MEMBERs of the Benton County Committee.

"PS — Northwest Arkansas newspaperman Doug Thompson Twitters that Nogy and his wife, who published his letter in the Benton County Republican newsletter, have resigned from the committee."

Not to change the subject but,while the State Police are doing some investigating they ought to investigate the little diddy that took place in a Fayetteville bar the other night with the two gun waging idiots.

Wow, who could be such an idiot as to try and defend this kind of garbage? Up steps BillA:

BillA: "His column clearly states that he doesn't believe they should be shot,">>

No, it clearly states they *can't* be shot, and that the 2nd Amendment means nothing if they don't fear being shot due to their constituents having

"...no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives."

BillA: "[column states]... only, that in the absence of that fear, the legislator should fear losing his seat.">>

But that would make the the 2nd Amendment meaningless!

BillA: "Satire has been a style of writing for thousands of years...only fools don't understand it.">>

Well, why didn't you say so. The Onion and Daily Currant are clearly labeled as satire so I think this whole matter can be put to rest if the Benton County Republicans would have the simple courtesy of labeling their newsletter correctly.

Sounds like a bunch of baloney blown out of proportion to me. It is absolutely true that if the "government" gets out of line it is the duty of the people to abloish it. The choice of words may be alarming to some, especially progressive liberals that see government as our savior rather than our servant, but the whole thing is pretty stupid anyway.

Bell and Nogy--typical Borderer attitudes.Always suspicious of central government.Always a gun culture.Always ready to take disagreements to the nth degree.The surname Bell was in fact held by one of the "riding (raiding) families" in the 16th century Borderlands.And Jeffieboy, your statement "It is absolutely true that if the "government" gets out of line it is the duty of the people to abolish it" is of the same ideology--especially the quotes around government.

Fine line there between military "intervention" and "war", ya think? It is that kind of liberal thinking and hair splitting that makes it easy to violate the fundamentals established by the constitution by "redefining" things. Kinda makes the limits on government power moot, ya think?

When we had the American Revolution people freaked out over a few pecent tax on certain goods. When they rebelled the Kings government pushed back. After a little tussle when the government tried to disarm the citizens of Concord they actually declared independence and started a war over it. After spending a ton of human capital and spilling rivers of blood they won a new freedom and created the greatest and most free nation on earth.

Today the government taxes about 70% of people's income in one way or another (multiple kinds and layers of taxes stacked one upon another and now the internet, too). You, your spouse, your young innocent children, and sweet little old granny are groped by government employees at the airport, you're fed garbage by the media and lied to by your representatives (both parties), and the federal government depletes and empties the treasury of funds it doesn't have to buy political favors so your money is being devalued by their largess and your grandchildren's lives are already mortgaged. On top of all that we are on the verge of a police state where the civilian government fears the people enough to stock up on armored vehicles and billions of rounds of ammunition and many wonder why so many people completely distrust the government.

How in the heck did we wind up in this mess? Bit by tiny bit by bit of progressive liberal meddling, that's how. It is very sad to see where their insane afflictions have brought us and how it has stolen our freedom and national identity. The time to work on changing that is long overdue. One just has to believe that America is strong and still has balls.

>>Today the government taxes about 70% of people's income in one way or another (multiple kinds and layers of taxes stacked one upon another and now the internet, too).<

That's about a 250% exaggeration but, coming from one of such fascinority, it's no surprise.

Total government take is approx 27% of GDP.

State and local sales taxes on internet sales have been due for several years. All the current proposed legislation does is set up an interstate means for collection in an across the board, fair manner.

I wasn't going to bother with this one because it's so silly, but since Cdawg smacked it, let's give it a poke. Conservatives often like to exaggerate and talk about half their money being taken in taxes. Jeffie, being a conservative gone to seed, ups the error considerably.

Jeff: "Today the government taxes about 70% of people's income in one way or another...>>

Cdawg adds: "That's about a 250% exaggeration...">>

I think you're being too kind. If we we look at the average take of "people's money" overall:

"Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports." http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/t...

70 divided by 9.2 tells us Jeffie is off by a factor of 7.6 times. This is why Jeffie gets the wrong conclusions, he appeals "evidence from his head," that is entirely, ludicrously, wrong.

For 2011 it gives a total of 15.5% as receipts as percentage of GDP. I guess you are adding on budget and off budget? In my experience, only the on budget amount is referred to as revenue as a % of GDP (because the difference amounts to borrowed, not currently taxed but rather future revenue?). But I'm not an accountant like you.

MyC adds: "Too bad you aren't a believe in Jesus Christ. You would be almost perfect.">>

"For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate -- what they actually pay -- fell from almost 30 percent in 1995 to just under 17 percent in 2007, according to the IRS. And for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1 percent of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29 percent to 23 percent in 2008."http://money.msn.com/taxes/latest.asp...

OK, now we have a list of instances in which the government "got out of line."BTW, my question was not intended to be belligerent, or suggest that the U.S. government had never made any mistakes. Far from it. I would say that the Iraq War was a good example of a mistake. I could cite many others.Now jeffieboy said "if the "government" gets out of line it is the duty of the people to abolish it."In which of the instances mentioned should the people have abolished the government?

"Where To Be Born In 2013" index, which predicts the countries that offer the greatest possibility of having "a healthy, safe and prosperous life," the United States isn't the place of choice.As the Economist magazine notes, the study is based on the results of a series of life-satisfaction surveys and takes into account indicators that include geography, demography, policies and economy.In 1988, the last time the study was published, U.S led the pack. Today, the top spots are reserved for Europan countries, while the U.S. falls out of the top 10. [to 16th]" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11...

To get an idea of just how out of whack that is, they give the US a perfect score in infrastructure (and the next closest gets 65), when other rankings put the US at 23rd: http://www.photius.com/rankings/infra...

Coralie, please stop bing redicuous and be real. You can't have possibly gotten to your age without a dose of reality and you seem to be getting a little frantic...please don't have stroke or anything. You could never hace attined your "tender" age without a bit of growing up and a dose of reality. Besides, without you I could be out of a lot of entertainment!

"It is absolutely true that if the "government" gets out of line it is the duty of the people to abloish it."jeffieboy's wordsAre they real or are you just woofing?+++mycentworth opines "We should have abolished the government as soon as we started taking away the money of taxpayers to give to the lazy and drug users and whatever other whim the government decided. "So when was that? What year should we have abolished the government?If we can't be real, at least let's be specific.

I'm 100% for real Coralie. I quote from our most cherished symbol of liberty:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.......it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security..........And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.".

I think the wisdom in these words from the Declaration of Independence are timeless and apply to any "government", including the one that has evovled into what we suffer today. If it gets enough out of line that it limits or abridges the fundamental freedoms of it's citizens it deserves to be abolished; preferrably by due process, but in any way necessary if it comes to it.

These ideals are kind of tough to argue and easy to see for anyone with a truely free spirit. They illustrate the principles by which freedom loving people live and their love of the concept of the freedom to self determination and enjoyment of the fruits of their labor.

These principles run completely contrary to progressive liberal agendas.

Jeffieboy, don't know if you are on facebook, but there are a lot of frustrated people out there. I learn a lot from it. I think people are wising up to what is going on, but I hope it isn't too late to reclaim our freedom.

However, you know me, I believe the prophecy of the Bible and that is where my hope and strength come from. God is going to judge the nations, and I want America on His side. But, no matter what, He will set it right one day.

Mycents....If you check the postings on Yahoo News comments you see the same trend you describe. Liberals are being pummelled. These threads are the only ones I know of other than dedicated progressive publications and sites that are dominated by left wing progressives. Government sites favor liberals as well as they are under the control of left leaning administrators under the Obama in Chief.

Perhaps it is a college town thing (Fayettenam) or something, or perhaps it has something to do with all those college graduates that were indoctrinated by the likes of Art Hobson that are working part time jobs at McDonalds. I hear an advanced degree can get you hired as a bartender if you're lucky.

If that fails you can get more government loans or enter a special "educate to work" program and stay in or go to school and live off that. Different states have all kinds of ways to give people money. That is what my brother is doing quite successfully pursuing a bachelors degree in computer science, all on the public dole while he collects SSI on top of it in another state.

I don't agree with what he is doing or condone it but he argues he paid in to the system all his life and he doesn't feel bad about getting some of it back. He is approaching the age of 50 and worked continuously with few unemployment gaps since he was about 16. He has been unemployed for about 3 years and getting paid to go to school for almost 2. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do to survive.

That is the age old attitude, "I'm going to get mine". Doesn't make it right. Sometimes, a helping hand is needed and warranted, but many times it is just scamming the taxpayer out of as much as they can. I believe the rich is the most successful at it, not all of them, but many.

"I guess you gotta do what you gotta do to survive"

The way this world is, what are we surviving for? I know, that is not a optimistic attitude, but I've only seen things getting worse for quite awhile. "The lust of money IS the root of all evil"

Money isn't evil at all when you understand why it is so important. Imagine if you are a farmer and want to buy a pot. All you have available for trade is a cow. Now a cow is worth much more than a pot so how do you trade?

Easy, you go to the butcher or another farmer that needs a cow and sell it for 500 "coppers". Then you can go buy a pot for 50 "coppers" and preserve the rest of the value of the cow and put that wealth to use for other things.

For the rest of your cow "coppers" you can buy seed for next years plantings and maybe a calf or two to raise into another cow. You can manage all of these wonderful resources to preserve and enjoy the benefits of productivitiy and "wealth" which is nothing more than the rewards of your work and productivity.

When you grow old and can't do the labor necessary to earn more "coppers" if you have saved enough of them you can provide for yourself well into the feebleness of old age. If you die with just two "coppers" to keep your eyes shut as they lay you in your casket you have carried your load and done well.

If you have extra "coppers" to leave to your children and enhance their lives you have done more than enough. That is excellent and how money becomes your friend and that of your prosterity.

These principles do not take into account things like artificial adjustments that government makes to confuse destroy the value of our efforts.

That is why government and speculative monetary policy is bad no matter how you look at it because it it has the ability to change the rules and the value of your efforts and "coppers" at any politically or economically convenient time. Where we went wrong was to "float" the value of our "coppers" so government could mortgage your productivity and that of future generations. I think we are screwed.

No websites, this is original thinking. There is nothing more wonderful than to hold a coin in your hand, unlike some pristine US collector coin you may never touch, that may have bought a beer for a soldier and perhaps something even more intersting, that was minted thousands of years ago. I have a few of those. It is funny that they are worth much more today as relics than when they were minted.

I knew I should have said money in itself is not evil. It is the lust/love of money that is evil. There is a difference. Lust/love of someone, something makes one do things they wouldn't otherwise do. Money is nice to have, but not to be worshiped.It is God to some.

"It was the same year I changed from democrat to republican. My kids were little."Well then, you can probably at least tell us who was President at the time that 'we' should have abolished the government.

"Where we went wrong was to "float" the value of our "coppers" so government could mortgage your productivity and that of future generations."Didn't that happen under Nixon?cdawg could probably explain it.

You are brilliant on that one Coralie. There have been several instances where government modified the valuation of currency and no single president is responsible. Gold has always been tied to money and whatever country had the most was the richest. With expanding international trade gold became an international exchange standard in the mid 1800's.

Because of the gold rush in the US we had more than anyone else at the time and countries that didn't have a lot of it tied the value of their currency to the US dollar. As a result the US dollar became the "world" currency standard. Being tied to a set standard (gold at $35 an ouce) it made all currencies tied to it stable.

Nations have been off and on the gold standard since WW I. Every time countries needed more money than they had they would go off the gold standard and "float" the value of their currency. When the US needed to borrow vast sums (1914, 1929, and 1973) they went off the gold standard so they could print as much as they wanted. It was a form of "borrowing" and each time we went back to gold and paid our debts...except.....

Except in 1973. Since then we haven't been able to go back to gold because of ever increasing and now unsustainable debt. As Coralie says, "floating the value of our coppers" has a profound economic effect on everything tied to money (which is pretty much "everything").

The scary part is that if it isn't controlled at some point the currency will collapse like it has in every instance before. Such collapses have altered the politics and power of nations and reshaped the world in dramatic ways throughout history. Spain, Portugal, and England used to be the most peowerful nations on earh. Look at them now. If we aren't careful and don't do somthing soon we might be next to follow in their footsteps.

It is interesting to note that in every instance prior to 1973 we went off gold and into debt to pay for wars or severe economic troubles. Those were WW I, the depression, and WW II. We paid those debts back and got the economy back to normal.

The economic troubles that forced us to abandon gold in 1973 were not tied to relatively short term unusual events with a beginning and end as was previously the case. The debt was tied to perpetual government spending programs, many that resulted from Johnson's Great Society initiatives.

As those programs expand along with government bureaucracy to support them and those costs grow and consume an ever increasing percentage of GDP so does debt...in perpetuity, without end. To further complicate matters we continue to invent new ones that have no end.

Just wait until Obamacare starts really costing money. I fear we ain't seen nothing yet. It might well be the "staw that broke the camel's back".

Very little of what Jeffie says above about gold and debt is accurate, but it's really not worth unpacking. Gold peddlers lack of understanding of history is nearly total. Besides, doing so would require referring to external reference and evidence "outside of his head," and he finds that sort of thing discomforting. With good reason.

Best to refer Gold fawners to this easy piece:

"Why the Gold Standard Is the World's Worst Economic Idea, in 2 Charts"

Excerpt:"The greatest trick Ron Paul ever pulled was convincing the world that the gold standard leads to stable prices.

Well, maybe not the world. Just the Republican Party. After a 32-year hiatus, the party's official platform will include a plank calling for a commission to look at the possible return of the gold standard. There might be worse ideas than this, but they generally involve jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge because everybody else is doing it.

Economics is often a contentious subject, but economists agree about the gold standard -- it is a barbarous relic that belongs in the dustbin of history. As University of Chicago professor Richard Thaler points out, exactly zero economists endorsed the idea in a recent poll. What makes it such an idea non grata? It prevents the central bank from fighting recessions by outsourcing monetary policy decisions to how much gold we have -- which, in turn, depends on our trade balance and on how much of the shiny rock we can dig up. When we peg the dollar to gold we have to raise interest rates when gold is scarce, regardless of the state of the economy. This policy inflexibility was the major cause of the Great Depression, as governments were forced to tighten policy at the worst possible moment. It's no coincidence that the sooner a country abandoned the gold standard, the sooner it began recovering."http://www.theatlantic.com/business/a...

I'm still waiting for the answer to "when should we have abolished the government?"Or did the moment come as soon as Barack Obama was elected?That socialist, Muslim, gay Kenyan.Under his administration we finally got health care reform. first proposed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.Nothing like Obamacare had ever happened in the history of the United States!!!It's time to organize a well-regulated militia and start another Civil War.+++The problem has nothing to do with the fact that Obama is our first (half) black president.

Freebie, you must be stupid or something. You cite the "Atlantic" and "Krugman". My God give us a break. Left wing partisan progressive liberal sources are completely invalid in any discussion of anything. Why don't you try searching your precious internet for peer reviewed sources or learn something about numistics, trade and money. You might learn something but I bet you are probably not capable of it through the fog of the Koolaide you seem to which you seem to be so addicted. Lame, very lame.

Precious Coralie, the moment has not come. However it may be approaching. Nearly half of the country is addicted to something that will soon prove it can't reliably delivered. Any system of anything has limits. At the point they are exceeded the dogs that rely on them will likely bite the hands that feed them. We'll just have to wait and see. Maybe 2014 or soon after? We'll just have to let nature take it's course and see.

One a periodical, the other a Nobel Prize winning economist and one of America's most prominent economists. But that's irrelevant anyway. Again, you respond to nothing and give us a two step routine instead.

When Jeffie gets stuck, and he gets stuck a lot, he reaches for his smear the source followed by run from addressing anything.

J: "[x] sources are completely invalid in any discussion of anything.">>

This is precisely the Genetic Fallacy. Let's review this *again* for our German speaking fire extinguisher date checker:

The genetic fallacy is the lazy persons favorite fallacy when they have no rebuttal. It's to attack the messenger, smear the source. Truth is independent of it's source. It doesn't follow that something is true or false because of it's source. Engage the data directly, if you can, rather this fallacy of smearing the source. I know you are trained by the Fox Boxes to argue in this way, but it is completely worthless, entirely lazy, and is never, ever, in anyway a rebuttal or response to the claim in question.

"Paul Krugman has written extensively on international economics, including international trade, economic geography, and international finance. The Research Papers in Economics project ranked him as the 14th most influential economist in the world as of March 2011 based on his academic contributions."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krugman